Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Looking To The Year Ahead

Happy New Year everyone! I spent New Year's Eve home with a nasty cold so we had to cancel our plans for the evening. Boo! On the upside, being home gave me lots of time to reflect on the changes that I'd like to make for the upcoming year, both in my personal life and for my business. On the home front I plan to strive for the usual resolutions - an organized, uncluttered home...to be a better wife and mother than the year before...to lose 10 pounds. This year I'll add "have more fun!" to the list, because as I reflect on 2012, "fun" isn't the descriptive word that pops into my head. It wasn't a bad year, just a nondescript one. Pretty boring, ho hum, and run of the mill. 2013 will be the year of fun! I'm going to implement weekly "date nights" so that hubby and I can have more fun together. I'm going to make family fun a priority this year too. The kids are both teenagers now and I've only got them for a few more years, so I want to make them count. Movie nights, board games, and weekend getaways are in the cards.In thinking about how I'd like to take my business forward into 2013, it's definitely going to be about having more fun! Last year's goal was to grow the business and make it more profitable. The best of intentions turned into me landing in a creative rut. I became so focused on what I was making to sell that I stopped having fun. As a result, my products lost their spark, IMO. This year I'm taking financial goals out of the picture. Do I want H.A.Y. to thrive? Absolutely! But my fiber business started out as a love of craft, not a love of $, and I'd like to keep it that way. I'm going back to the basics of why I love playing with fiber. This year will be about playing with new techniques and revisiting the ones that are the most fun/rewarding for me. So...my resolution for this year won't include making more $ or pumping out more product or marketing on social media every day. It will be about reigniting my creative spark. I'm pledging to CREATE something that I find beautiful every day. 365 days of craft. For me. Just for the fun of it! It could be a yarn, a picture, an inspired meal, an etching in the sand, a love note, a doodle. I'm not sure what I'll end up creating, but I promise to share it with all of you!